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RS polls results show who is B team of BJP, says JD(S)
All three BJP candidates -- Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaggesh and Lahar Singh Siroya -- won their seats and Jairam Ramesh from the Congress registered a victory. A candidate needed 45 MLA votes to win.
The Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) crumbled in the Rajya Sabha polls with the party nominee Kupendra Reddy managing to get only 30 votes of the 32 MLAs with two legislators cross-voting in favour of the two national parties.
The fight between the arch rivals, Congress and JD(S), benefited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that managed to secure three out of the four seats from the state to the upper house of Parliament.
All three BJP candidates -- Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaggesh and Lahar Singh Siroya -- won their seats and Jairam Ramesh from the Congress registered a victory. A candidate needed 45 MLA votes to win.
The Congress, which sought JD (S) MLAs to vote as per their “conscience” or “Atma Sakshi” managed to get at least one vote from JD(S) MLA, Srinivas Gowda, but was not enough for its candidate, Mansoor Ali Khan to get over the line. SR Srinivas has voted for the BJP, as per BJP and JD(S) leaders.
The BJP had reined in all its legislators and left no room for cross-voting to secure victories for all three of its candidates, starving the JD(S) candidate whose only hope for a win was if the Congress supported its bid.
A section of JD(S) MLAs spent the night in a five-star hotel in Bengaluru to thwart attempts by rivals to poach their votes and had reached out to all rebels within the party to keep them from voting against the party.
The group, led by former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, travelled together in a bus and cast their vote after 12 pm, believed to be an auspicious time and seeking divine intervention to help the party win its lone bid to the Rajya Sabha.
“The two national parties, for their political selfishness, have tried to finish off a regional party and hurt democracy,” Kumaraswamy said. He added that the Rajya Sabha polls demonstrated who the “actual B team of the BJP was”, indicating that the Congress had conspired to hurt the JD(S).
Hours later, Kumaraswamy said he has been advised rest by doctors and that he would not be speaking to anyone during this time.
Union finance minister Sitharaman secured 46 votes, Jaggesh got 44 and Lahar Singh Siroya secured 33 first preference votes. Jairam Ramesh of the Congress secured 46 votes and the party’s second choice candidate, Mansoor Ali Khan, got 21 votes. Reddy of the JD(S) secured just 30 votes as two legislators voted for the two national parties.
The BJP’s confidence emanated from the fact that the Congress and the JD (S) failed to forge a partnership for the RS polls and instead sought each other’s support in the name of “secularism” to defeat “communal forces”.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, had reached out to Kumaraswamy who in turn asked the Congress to transfer its second preference votes to the JD(S).
The Congress had fielded a second candidate, Khan, to corner the JD(S).
The Congress wanted the JD (S) to leave the fourth seat for it as it had supported former prime minister Deve Gowda in the Rajya Sabha election in 2020. That did not happen as JD (S) votes got split.
The victory for BJP could mean easing some pressure off chief minister Basavaraj Bommai who has not fared very well in recent by-elections, including suffering a humiliating loss in Hanagal of Haveri district, his home district.
Even before the results were announced, Kumaraswamy admitted that at least one of its legislators had voted for the Congress and accused the principal opposition party in the state assembly of “subverting” democracy and “hijacking” its MLAs.
He accused the rebels and Congress of cheating JD(S) workers.
“I voted (for) Congress......because I love it,” Srinivas Gowda, the JD(S) legislator from Kolar, said.
Gubbi MLA SR Srinivas voted for the BJP, according to CS Puttaraju of the JD(S), even though it was earlier believed that he had cast an empty ballot paper into the box.
Kumaraswamy hit out at Gowda, saying if he has any shame, he should resign from the party.
“He won the elections on a JD (S) ticket and with the help of the party workers in Kolar. This is an insult to the party and the workers. People will teach them a lesson in the next elections,” Kumaraswamy said.
In Karnataka, six candidates have filed their nominations for four seats. The ruling BJP has 120 legislators in the 224-member House and the Congress 69. It was poised to win two of the four seats and the Congress one. The BJP had 32 surplus votes while the Congress 25.
The JD(S) managed to get most of its rebel legislators to vote for the party despite their open claims to leave the party before the 2023 assembly election.
